Only About 60 Oldsmobile Pace Cars Got The 350, And Collectors Keep Overlooking Them
The Indianapolis 500 has a knack for making production cars feel special. Give an automaker the job of leading the field around the Brickyard, and suddenly a car has a racing connection and a story to tell. Pace car replicas let buyers take home a little piece of that occasion. Usually, the biggest muscle car engine steals the spotlight. Not this time. Here, the less powerful engine is the harder one to find.
The Indy 500 Created Some Seriously Special American Convertibles
The Indy 500’s pace car tradition goes all the way back to the very first race in 1911. A pace car leads the field before the green flag drops. Over time, though, the job grew into much more than a few laps of track duty. For an automaker, the pace car was arguably the best advertising money could buy, putting a new model at the front of the field in front of one of the biggest crowds in sports.
Eventually, automakers started selling pace car replicas to the public. These weren’t necessarily the cars used at the Speedway. They were production models dressed up to celebrate the event, often with special paint, graphics, and accessories completing the package. The formula worked especially well during the muscle car era. American brands were fighting for attention, and a limited-edition convertible tied to the Indy 500 gave buyers something they couldn’t get from the regular showroom model.
Oldsmobile Built Two Different Versions Of Its Pace Car Replica
Here is an interesting detail. The replica idea wasn’t some new marketing trick cooked up during the muscle car boom. Studebaker built 30 replicas of its 1929 President Roadster pace car and sold them to the public, so the idea had been around for decades before the muscle car era hit full swing. By the late 1960s, buyers wanted cars with a bit of attitude, and automakers were happy to give them special editions that looked sharp.
A convertible with Indy 500 graphics had the race-day connection and the open-air appeal, without requiring its owner to be a professional driver or have a pit crew on standby. Naturally, the trick was making the replica feel special enough to stand out once it left the showroom. Oldsmobile’s replica program built 626 Indy 500 convertibles, but they weren’t all alike. Just 268 of them were based on the 442, the performance-focused way into the package.
The other 358 went to a plusher Olds sibling that offered the same special-edition look. It was a clever way to connect two different models to the same event, but under the hood, things were different. One was built for gearheads chasing performance, and the other was the quiet kid on the block. Predictably, the performance-oriented model received the bigger V8, while the luxury-leaning sibling made do with the smaller engine. But the numbers tell a different story. There’s a rarer car hiding inside an already limited run.
Only About 60 Oldsmobile Pace Cars Got The Rocket 350
The 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Indy 500 Pace Car replica with the Rocket 350 V8 sits among the rarest of the rare. Of the 358 Cutlass Supreme examples, roughly 300 got the 455 big-block, leaving only about 60 with the 350. Those figures are estimates, not a confirmed factory breakdown, so luck plays its part if you’re hunting for one. The 350 wasn’t a fire-breathing monster by muscle car standards, but it was hardly a wheezy afterthought either. The four-barrel V8 was rated at 310 hp and 390 lb-ft of torque, both gross figures.
The package turned heads wherever it went. Porcelain White paint, black stripes outlined in red, Indy 500 graphics, and a fiberglass W-25 forced-air scoop completed the race-day costume. A Y74 code on the cowl tag identifies the pace car option. Many cars were ordered with a Hurst Dual Gate shifter, power front disc brakes, and Super Stock sport wheels, though sources disagree on whether those were Super Stock II or III, and equipment varied from car to car. The contradiction is that the rarest configuration got the smaller V8. That rarity should make it a collector magnet, but for buyers shopping by cubic inches, the engine was an instant red flag.
This Oldsmobile Took On A Corvette Head To Head
The 350-powered Cutlass proved that a smaller engine doesn’t automatically mean a slower car. At a Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race event, it lined up against a Corvette and won the first run with a 16.16-second pass at 82.73 mph to the Vette’s 16.28 seconds at 87.13 mph. The Olds took the second round too. To be fair to the Corvette, it had the higher trap speed both times.
Context matters as much as the result. The Olds is rated at 310 hp gross, while the Corvette’s 250 hp is a net rating, so the two numbers can’t be compared directly. There have also been questions about the Corvette itself. Coverage of the race identified it as a 1974, and its 250 hp rating points to the L82, but some viewers questioned the year. Either way, the Olds did something respectable, beating a Corvette in a place where few would have bet on it.
What Is A 350-Powered Oldsmobile Pace Car Worth Today?
A 350-powered Olds pace car isn’t priced like a blue-chip muscle car. One example sold for $32,500 at online auction in August 2025, a single data point rather than a market trend. What makes the car interesting is the combination of head-turning bodywork, the Indy connection, and a smaller engine that collectors tend to look straight past. The bigger-engine cars have an easy pitch, but the 350-powered Cutlass has a story of its own. It looks the part, carries the pace car connection, and appears to be the rarer choice within an already small run. For enthusiasts who like the oddball corners of muscle car history, that’s a good reason to keep it on the radar.
Sources: Bring A Trailer, Classic.com, Mecum
Related posts
Latest Post
No Comments